The document provides an overview of style and stylistics. It defines style as the individual manner of using language and discusses its different meanings. Stylistics is defined as the study of finer shades of meaning in language. The purpose of stylistics is to explore creativity in language use and how it enriches our understanding of texts. Key concepts in stylistic analysis like phonology, lexis, syntax and semantics are also outlined.
The document provides an overview of style and stylistics. It defines style as the individual manner of using language and discusses its different meanings. Stylistics is defined as the study of finer shades of meaning in language. The purpose of stylistics is to explore creativity in language use and how it enriches our understanding of texts. Key concepts in stylistic analysis like phonology, lexis, syntax and semantics are also outlined.
The document provides an overview of style and stylistics. It defines style as the individual manner of using language and discusses its different meanings. Stylistics is defined as the study of finer shades of meaning in language. The purpose of stylistics is to explore creativity in language use and how it enriches our understanding of texts. Key concepts in stylistic analysis like phonology, lexis, syntax and semantics are also outlined.
The document provides an overview of style and stylistics. It defines style as the individual manner of using language and discusses its different meanings. Stylistics is defined as the study of finer shades of meaning in language. The purpose of stylistics is to explore creativity in language use and how it enriches our understanding of texts. Key concepts in stylistic analysis like phonology, lexis, syntax and semantics are also outlined.
“stilus” Now it refers to different things: Different compositions, Correspondence between thought and expression, Individual manner of making use of language. Four meanings of the notion of style
Some or all of the habits of one person (e.g.,
Eminem style); some or all of the language habits shared by a group of people at one time or over a period of time (e.g., the style of the Victorian era); Effectiveness of a mode of expression (in this case it is given a more restricted meaning used in the evaluative sense- ); Referring solely to the literary language as characteristic of ‘good’, ‘effective’, ‘beautiful’ writing (associated exclusively with literature- Journalistic style of Hemingway) Definitions
According to Berel (1987) style is
“the replication of patterning, whether in human behavior or in the artifacts produced in human behavior, that results from a series of choices made within some set of constraints” (p.21). Definitions
“Style”, as John Haynes (2006)
puts it , “is the study of finer shades of meaning within a more general commonness” (p. 2). “le mot juste”. Definitions
According to Lucas (1955), style
is “the effective use of language, especially in prose, whether to make a statement or to rouse emotions. It involves first of all the power to put fact with clarity and brevity” (p.9). « Style is understood as an emphasis (expressive, affective, or aesthetic) added to the information conveyed by the linguistic structures, without alteration of meaning. That is to say that language expresses and that style stresses… » (Riffaterre 155) Common Features of Style
First, style is bound to perception (terrorists or as
freedom fighters); Formality decides which style to or not to adopt (audience and place). Style is a matter of focus (the importance of the aspect in the conversation) Style is a matter of representation (It adheres to the way you want to represent a person a thing, or an idea to the other) Stylistics
Stylistics is defined as « a method of textual
interpretation in which primacy of place is assigned to language » (P. Simpson 02) It provides various patterns and levels on which the function of a text stands. The preferred object of stylistics is literature, however, 1- Literary writing is not the only source for creativity (other forms of discourse are as important- advertisement, music, journalism...etc) Stylistics
2- The same techniques of analysis bring insights as
much from language as it does from literature. What can stylistics tell us about literature? What can stylistics tell us about language? Stylistics acknowledges time, place, cultural, and cognitive contexts that envelop a given language (language in use) Extra-linguistics features of a text make its meaning as well. Purpose of Stylistics
To explore creativity in language use.
It enriches our ways of thinking about language, and hence, literary texts. It tells us about the rules of language and when these rules are violated. The three ‘Rs’ that a stylistician should conform to: Rigorous (an explicit framework of analysis) Retrievable (organised through explicit terms know to other stylisticians) Replicable ( it can be verified for testing or application again) The SECOND COMING W. B. YEATS 1919
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at
last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Yeats
Protestant Anglo-Irish minority,
Belonged to aristocratic elites, He featured the Irish culture in his writings, Accused of elitism, Interested in occultism and spiritualism, Driven by patriotic ideals (John O'Leary), Mixed his love for romantic setting and themes with Irish legends, Interested in both prose and poetry, Courted a Nationalist Maude Gonne, He became a distinguished theosophist (teaching about God and the world based on mystical insight) Graphology
Punctuation
Italics
Capitalization Phonology
Free verse (consistent meter by free rhyme)
No end rhyme Alliteration: repetition of ANY SOUND at the BEGINNING of words. Consonance: Repetition of Consonant ANYWHERE - Assonance: Repetition of vowel ANYWHERE Phonology
incompleteness Noun phrase: the falcon-the blood- dimmed- the darkness… Definite and indefinite articles: the a Double negation: cannot and cannot The rest of sentences are affirmative Passive and active: cannot-is loosed Semantic level
Use of symbols: Gyre-Falcon- falconer- sphinx-
blood-dimmed tide- the rocking cradle Use of metaphors and similes: blank and pitiless as the sun- the second coming- the falcon cannot hear the falconer- the blood-dimmed tide-and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned- the centre cannot hold Allusion: the second coming Imagery: widening gyre- things fall apart